CNN Caves to Covington Kid

Covington teen Nick Sandmann bags CNN settlement in $250 million lawsuit

At least one of the defamation suits brought against the media by pro-life teenager Nick Sandmann will not proceed to trial, as CNN agreed Tuesday to a settlement in the case.

Immediately after last year’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., the press erupted with claims that a video showed boys from a Catholic school in Kentucky harassing Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, outside the Lincoln Memorial.

But additional extended video and firsthand accounts soon revealed that Phillips was the one who waded into the group waiting for its bus and decided to beat a drum inches from Sandmann’s face, while the boys had merely performed school cheers in hopes of drowning out racist taunts from members of the Black Hebrew Israelites fringe group.

As additional video came to light, many journalists and other public figures quickly deleted their snap condemnations of the students, while some either tried to keep the original narrative alive or refused to unequivocally retract or apologize for their initial claims, leading to various lawsuits on behalf of the boys.

Among the challenges was a $250 million suit against CNN for broadcasting into “millions of homes” the “idea that [Sandmann] was part of a mob...yelling racist slurs,” according to attorney L. Lin Wood. But the suit was settled Tuesday for an as-yet-undisclosed sum, Fox 19 reports.

I hope it was a big chunk of change. Not a good sign for the WaPoo.